Favorable weather conditions, high-yielding verities and prudent policy supports will help the country’s agriculture sector achieve a higher and sustainable growth in the coming years, comforting economy by ensuring food security and lowering import cost.
At least for the next two years, this sector would grow steadily and a faster pace unlike in the past few years, according to the latest economic update of the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
The update predicts that the agriculture growth would be 3.0 percent in the current 2013-14 (FY14) financial year and it would rise to 3.5 percent in the coming 2014-15 (FY15) fiscal year.
The ABD report attributed the higher growth prospect to the favorable weather conditions and increasing use of high-yielding crop variety supported by the government’s drive to promote diversification in agriculture by fostering private- sector-led agribusiness and improving rural infrastructure.
“The latter includes developing farm-to-market roads, providing access to affordable power, developing rural growth centers including marketplaces with women’s sections, and building rural water supply and sanitation infrastructure,” the ADB said.
Against the backdrop of the improved situation, the Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE) targets 35.9 million (34.6 million tons of rice and 1.3 million tons of wheat), tons of food-grain production in FY14, up by 2.3 percent from actual production in 2012-13 financial year (FY13).
According to Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics estimates, Aus (summer rice crop) production was 2.3 million tons from 1.1 million hectares, 4.5 percent higher than 2.2 million tons in FY2013.
Although the cultivation area was unchanged, Aus production rose in the current fiscal year due to higher yield. Aman (monsoon rice crop) production was estimated provisionally at 13.0 million tons with a cultivation area of 5.5 million hectares, 0.8 higher than actual production of 12.9 million tons in FY13.
Although the total cultivation area decreased by 1.8 percent from the previous year because of the decline in area under local variety seeds, Aman production rose in the current fiscal year due to the increased area planted with high-yielding variety seeds.
The production target of the major Boro rice crop was 18.9 million tons from 4.8 million hectares, 0.5 percent higher than actual production of 18.8 million tons in FY13. The wheat production target of 1.3 million tons from 0.4 million hectares is unchanged from FY13.
Agriculture generates close to half of employment, contributes 20 percent of GDP, and provides a secure supply of food to the whole population.
“Transforming subsistence to commercial agriculture is key to improving rural livelihoods, boosting rural economic growth, and contributing to long-term food security,” the ADB said in its economic update.
